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History, Choice, and Reflection in Robert Penn Warren's HISTORY, CHOICE, AND REFLECTION IN ROBERT PENN WARREN 'S " AMERICANA TRILOGY"1 [a] Copyright 2004 Steven D. Ealy Time, history, poetry, and identity are intertwined in the thought and writings of Robert Penn Warren. These interconnections are famously encapsulated in Warren 's foreword to Brother to Dragons: "If poetry is the little myth we make, history is the big myth we live."i [1] This paper will deal with these themes as found in three of Warren 's long poems, Brother to Dragons, Audubon: A Vision,ii [2] and Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce.iii [3] These poems, for all of their differences in theme and style, share certain characteristics that this paper will highlight. 1) Each poem has, as its title character, an archetypal American. In the case of Brother to Dragons, that character is Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence and the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, and father of the University of Virginia . (BD I, p. 2) "Audubon" is Jean Jacques, or John James, remembered chiefly for his Birds of America. Chief Joseph was one of the leaders of the "non-treaty Nez Perce" who led his tribe from their traditional home in the Wallowa Valley of Oregon Territory on a thousand mile trek to freedom headed for Canada, only to be captured by the US Cavalry within 50 miles of the Canadian border, and who came to symbolize the Nez Perce struggle in the popular mind. 2) Each poem features the layering of time, with aspects of the contemporary American landscape or map overlaying that of the earlier period. 3) Each poem includes among its cast of characters 1 [a] Prepared for delivery on the panel "Time of the Tale: Being in Flux and Modern Literature" at the 2004 Eric Voegelin Society Annual Meeting, Chicago , Illinois , September 1-5, 2004 . the author of the poem, Robert Penn Warren, who either interacts with or reflects on the poem's title figure. 4) Each poem contains a meditation on history, identity, and time. Brother to Dragonsiv [4] This poem occupied, or preoccupied, Warren for over two decades. Brother to Dragons, "A Tale in Verse and Voices," was originally published in book form in 1953. As Warren makes clear in a prefatory note, it is "a dialogue spoken by characters, but it is not a play." (BD, 1953, p. xiii) In 1979, "a new version,"v [5] considerably tightened, was published. In this version Warren reiterates even more strongly than in the original that the poem is not a play. (BD II, p. xv) Between the appearance of these two versions of the poem, Warren published Brother to Dragons as "a play in two acts" in The Georgia Review.vi [6] The "tale" told in Brother to Dragons is both grisly and melodramatic. Lucy Jefferson, younger sister of Thomas Jefferson, married colonelvii [7] Charles Lewis. Lewis moved his family, including sons Lilburne and Isham (the younger by a dozen or so years) and his slaves, from Albemarle County , Virginia , to an estate along the Ohio River west of Louisville , Kentucky . Shortly after this relocation Lucy died, and Charles Lewis spent much of his time away from Rocky Hill, leaving Lilburne in charge. On the night of December 15, 1811 ,viii [8] Lilburne and Isham, in front of their assembled slaves, used a butcher axe to kill and dismember a young slave for having broken a favorite pitcher of their dead mother. This murder eventually came to the attention of local authorities, and Lilburne and Isham were indicted, arrested, and released on bail to await trial. They agreed to avoid trial by engaging in mutually assisted suicide by shooting (in one version of the story, over the grave of their mother). But this plan went awry when Lilburne was shot and killed prematurely, either through his own hand or that of Isham. Isham was detained for the murder of his brother, but escaped from jail and disappeared. Legend has it that Isham joined Andrew Jackson's forces and fought with Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans, where he was fatally wounded, and that he was recognized as he lay dying. While this brutal murder and the bizarre series of events that flow from it provide the backdrop for Warren 's poem, the real action of the poem is the encounter between the principals of the historic events and "R. P. W.," the "writer of this poem" who also serves as interlocutor. This encounter between R. P. W. and the shades of the past is set in "no place" at "any time." (BD I, pp. 2-3; BD II, pp. 2-3). This particular, and peculiar, placement in time and space is another way of saying, according to Warren , "that the issues that the characters . discuss are . a human constant" (BD II, p. xv). Warren is especially interested in understanding how the murder committed by Jefferson 's sister's sons--his nephews--affected Jefferson 's understanding of human nature. This matter of understanding Jefferson 's reaction is complicated by the fact that there is no evidence that Jefferson ever commented on the incident.ix [9] Jefferson opens the revised version of Brother to Dragons by claiming that he "Cannot, though dead, set/My mouth to the dark stream that I may unknow/All my knowing." (BD II, p. 5) He had set his knowledge against his hope: "I tried to bring myself to say:/Knowledge is only incidental, hope is all--/Hope, a dry acorn, but some green germx [10] /May split it yet, then joy and the summer shade." (BD II, p. 5) He seeks shelter from his knowledge--his shelter seems to be "senility/And moments of indulgent fiction"--so that he "might try/To defend my old definition of man." (BD II, p. 5) Jefferson 's "old definition of man" is the "vision" contained in the Declaration of Independence, a vision of man in which both liberty and equality are maximized, and reason rules all. "In Philadelphia first it came, my heart/Shook, shamefast in glory, and I saw, I saw-- /But I'll tell you quietly, in system, what I saw." (BD II, p. 5) At this point in the poem Jefferson loses his train of thought in a nightmare vision of the Minotaur, but soon returns to his narrative. To begin again. When I to Philadelphia came I knew what the world was. Oh, I wasn't That ilk of fool! Then when I saw individual evil, I rationally said, it is only provisional paradox To resolve itself in Time. Oh, easy, Plump-bellied comfort! Philadelphia , yes. I knew we were only men, Defined in errors and interests. But I, a man too-- Yes, laugh if you will--stumbled into The breathless awe of vision, saw sudden On every face, face after face, Bleared, puffed, lank, lean red-fleshed or sallow, all-- On all saw the brightness blaze, And knew my own days, Times, hopes, horsemanship, respect of peers, Delight, desire, and even my love, but straw Fit for the flame, and in that fierce combustion, I-- Why, I was nothing, nothing but joy, And my heart cried out: "Oh, this is Man!" (BD II, p. 7) Jefferson 's hopeful definition of man required that one "leap beyond" man's natural limits (physical, moral, and spiritual, I would suggest) as found in the historical world in order "To find justification in a goal/Hypothesized in Nature." (BD II, p. 8) Jefferson 's reorienting comment, "To begin again," which was designed to get himself back on the subject at hand, has a double meaning. He has become confused and strayed from his topic and must start over. But from the perspective of many, Philadelphia --representative of the hope for mankind in the New World more generally--was an opportunity to begin the human experience again. The soon-to- be-new-nation was, after all, the last, best hope for all mankind. The vision of man embodied in the Declaration of Independence held open the possibility of setting aside human history and starting over again, and it's grandeur blinded Jefferson (and perhaps other members of the Continental Congress--"delegates by accident, in essence men,/Marmosets in mantles, beasts in boots, parrots in pantaloons,/That is to say, men." [BD II, pp. 5-6]) to the bestial side of man's nature. Jefferson continues: But No beast then, the towering Definition, angelic, arrogant, abstract, Greaved in glory, thewed with light, the bright Brow tall as dawn. I could not see the eyes. So seized the pen, and in the upper room, With the excited consciousness that I was somehow Rectified, annealed, my past annulled And fate confirmed. Time came, we signed the document, went home. I had not seen the eyes of that bright apparition. I had been blind with light. I did not know its eyes were blind. (BD II, p. 8) Jefferson was blinded not only by the grandeur of this vision of man, but also by the possibilities of the American West--"my West" as he calls the new frontier in this poem. Because of the importance of this new land to him, Jefferson decides to have his nephew Meriwether Lewis--who is in many ways his spiritual son--lead the expedition of discovery: "But my own blood will go/To name and chart and set the human foot." (BD II, p. 9) As the discussion of Chief Joseph will show, Warren deals with the fact that "the human foot" had already trod upon this territory, and not the human foot of Spanish and French explorers only, but that of many native Indian tribes.
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